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No Peas
‘I’ll take the car,’ Amy offered. It was the best part of a mile from the campsite into the village of Elderthwaite, and it was raining again. The morning had been overcast, but halfway through the day, luckily after they’d finished eating their sandwiches down by the shores of Windermere, the rain had started, and it hadn’t stopped since. The tent was wet through; she had to keep telling Harry not to touch the walls, and he was now lying rigid in the centre of it, eating chocolate sheep droppings Oliver had brought him and sulking because she wouldn’t let him eat the whole packet.
‘Thanks!’ Matt said. ‘If you drive it means I won’t have to pack everything in the van away again.’ Rainwater was dripping down his face from the hood of his waterproof coat. ‘There’s no way the boys will want to walk there and back in this rain!’
There was no way she would want to, either. She was looking forward to her evening in the warm, dry Shepherd’s Rest and away from the damp, cold tent, cooking on the tiny stove in the rain.
‘This place could do with a proper drying room. Somewhere for wet boots and coats,’ he said, almost as if he was reading her mind. ‘So many of the people who come here are backpackers on the Lakeland Way. It would make sense to have proper facilities for them.’
‘Yes, I’d practically kill to get my coat dry. It’s so difficult to get anything dry in a tent. I think our coats are going to stay wet all week!’
‘Will there be Wi-Fi in the pub?’ Harry’s voice demanded from the tent. ‘Shall I take my phone?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. I don’t think it’s that kind of pub,’ she lied. She’d used the opportunity of a decent mobile signal while they were over near Windermere to let James know Harry wouldn’t be in touch with him this week, so he wouldn’t worry about him. It would be awful if James was prying into every single thing they were doing, getting irritated because she was letting Harry play in sheep poo, or allowing him to eat hotdog sausages, or say ‘Titty’ — but she equally didn’t want him to drive over here in a panic because Harry hadn’t been in touch.
‘Okay, I won’t take my phone, then,’ he said calmly. This was a surprise — she’d expected a meltdown, knowing how uptight he could get about messaging his dad. ‘I’m going to go to the toilet before we go out.’
‘You know, Harry, you’re getting so sensible about that!’ Amy said. He was growing up fast, her little boy.
‘Are you going to go too, Oliver?’ Matt said.
‘No way. It’s raining.’
‘Aw. Come on Olly — race ya!’
‘No. I don’t want to.’
‘Oh. Well. I’m going for a wee, now,’ Harry declared matter-of-factly and set off up the field.
He was gone a very long time. Amy had sorted out the seats in the car so all four of them could sit in comfort; she’d started the engine, then she’d driven up to the top of the field near the toilets to wait for Harry and still he didn’t appear.
‘Oliver, would you be a big help, and would you go to the boys’ toilets and make sure Harry’s okay? I can’t go in there myself,’ Amy asked.
‘It’s all right. I’ll go,’ Matt offered. He and Harry came back quickly.
‘What were you doing in there?’ Amy asked as Harry climbed into the seat behind her, clambering over Oliver on the way. ‘On the other hand, I probably don’t want to know.’
‘Just took a long time, that’s all,’ Harry said, almost guardedly for him. He still had the small boy’s fascination with matters scatological and usually liked to tell her in gruesome detail exactly what he had been doing on the toilet. Perhaps he didn’t want to talk about it in front of Oliver and his dad. He was growing up, after all.
‘Let’s go, then!’ Amy said as soon as they were all belted in. The lane took them over the old slate bridge and then down the valley. They drove beside the beck, with its clear, cold water racing over pebbles of granite and quartz, until they got to the little village of Elderthwaite. It had only about thirty houses in total, mostly very ancient with old stone walls and slate roofs. Some of them had galleries where, in the olden days, the women would have sat spinning the wool under cover from the Lakeland rain. These days most of them were filled with bright pot-plants, a welcome splash of colour on a showery summer’s evening. The village itself was clustered around a bridge with the chapel on one side and the pub on the other. They pulled into the tiny car-park and entered the pub through a heavy wooden door. Matt spotted a table at the end of the room, next to a small window with a glimpse of the fells and the sky beyond.
‘There is Wi-Fi!’ Harry had spotted a blackboard with the password on it.
‘I brought some playing cards. I thought we might have a game or two?’ Amy put a pack of cards down on the table.
‘Boring.’ Harry yawned theatrically.
‘I’ll get us some drinks. What would you like?’ Matt reached into his pocket to find his wallet.
‘It’s fine, we’ll get our own.’
‘No way. You drove, the least I can do is get you a drink. What should I get for your mam, Harry?’
‘Wine,’ he said firmly. ‘She drinks A LOT of wine.’
‘I do not!’ she protested, ‘hardly any! I’ve got to drive back, so I’ll have an apple juice, please and Harry will probably want —’
‘A Coke!’ he finished her sentence for her.
